In a good news to the Master’s of Dental Surgery (MDS) aspirants who had appeared for National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) 2017, the Union Health Ministry in consultation with Dental Council of India (DCI), has lowered the qualifying NEET score for admissions in the PG dental courses across the country by 7.5 percentile for 2017-18.
last year, the DCI had asked the centre to cut down percentile to fill seats in different parts of the country by 10 per cent. Accordingly, the qualifying percentiles for NEET MDS 2017 have been revised to 42.5 percentile instead of 50 percentile for general category, 32.5 percentile instead of 40 percentile for SC/ST/OBC category and 37.5 percentile instead of 45 percentile for the persons with locomotary disability of lower limbs, says the order signed by Pradip Kumar Pal, under secretary to the government of India on May 11.
"This is in exercise of the powers conferred by the proviso contained in clause 2 of Section 3 of the Dental Council oflndia Revised MDS Course (2nd Amendment) Regulations, 2007," said the official.
This is applicable for the academic session 2017-18 only, said the order. The examination for MDS was held from 30 November-3rd December last year. According to a senior official in the Health Ministry need to lower the qualifying score was mandated as significantly lesser students had qualified for admission as compared to seats available.
In India, for 15,000-odd MDS seats, only 10,636 students had qualified for admission. The officials said the fresh merit list will be declared next week. With about 309 dental colleges in the country, 26,000 dentists graduate every year.
It is likely in 2020, that India has a surplus of about 1 lakh dentists in the country